'The Real Housewives Of New Jersey' Recap: The Blonde Drops A Bombshell

Teresa’s summary of the Arizona trip to her mother is hilariously succinct. “We went to Arizona and we went healing and we had SUCH a good time and now everything is better.” To Teresa, everything is so good that she can now invite her parents over for Sunday dinner. Her mother looks unconvinced, but sighs and agrees to come over. What’s one more table flip going to hurt?

Jacqueline has to face her fears and give a speech for an autism charity event (basketball is involved?), but the poor thing doesn’t even know where to begin. She looks petrified at the thought of getting on stage in front of what Chris described as “hundreds and hundreds of supporters,” but she has to do it because people on twitter have been accusing her of putting Nicholas on TV for the attention. People are awful.

Kathy is still chugging along with her one storyline, the cannolis. Richie realized in Arizona that he might be a bit controlling and mean to his wife, so at her meeting with her event coordinator he decides to shut up and listen. Turns out, Kathy has the opportunity to do an in-store demonstration at Dylan’s Candy Bar in NYC, which will be huge for her – she just needs to spread the word so it’s not an empty turn-out. Easy.

At the Gorga family dinner, things are going pretty swimmingly except that Joe and Teresa’s oft-sick father has kidney stones and can’t attend. Mom reiterates that they can’t let strangers get in the way of their family bonds, and to just tune it all out. She also concludes that while Melissa is a gossip, Teresa is the bigger gossip. Glad that’s settled.

The next day, Teresa goes over to Jacqueline’s house for the first time since the infamous incident when they fought about whether or not she was going to jail. Simpler times. Nick is in music therapy when she arrives and Jacqueline hopes Teresa sees it and maybe understands a little more what Nick goes through; he was a baby the last time she and Jac were close. Let’s not hold our breath.

She decides to ask Teresa for help with her speech too, with hilarious results. Chris can’t stop laughing in his talking head. Neither woman can get a word out, but they eventually get something down that’s pretty sweet and meaningful

Melissa somehow, by some insane reason, scores a meeting with Justin Timberlake’s producer. He’s “interested” in working with her on a record, and this show is acting like this is a totally normal thing that is just happening. Andy Cohen, how much did you pay him? At the meeting, she launches into this laughable speech about how it’s been her dream for two whole years to be a star, and that she’s able to balance it with being a wife and mother.

He tells her that nobody gives a damn if she has kids in the music industry because she needs to be fully committed to her work. So he sends a team to her home recording studio to get a demo from her, and it’s a disaster. Since she really can’t sing all that well, she stops and starts frequently because of things like “static” and “feeling off.” Since they’re professionals, they know what’s up and just stop the whole thing and tell her basically that they’ll be in touch. If she wants to keep this going, she has to fly down to Florida and put in the man-hours, on their turf without the fuss. Is she really ready for this?

Kathy has the lowest self-esteem in the world. Rich buys her flowers to celebrate her cannoli day, and she asks who they’re for. After this she gets completely frazzled and can barely make it out the door to get to the event. And as soon as she gets there, it’s a bust – none of her friends show up. Sure, there’s a ton of foot traffic from tourists, but nobody on her end. Eventually, after being there for hours making cannolis, they all come shuffling in. But since it’s Kathy, they’re all on her passive-aggressive hate list forever even though she puts on a happy face and gives them free cannoli kits.

The time comes for the BLK charity basketball event…and Jac’s big speech. She’s terrified to the point of shaking. But she shouldn’t have worried; her speech was beautiful, to the point of moving everyone in the room to tears.

Melissa and Joe go out to dinner at the same place Penny just so happens to be having drinks with a girlfriend. Try harder, Bravo. Even though they promised Teresa in Arizona that they would confront haters as a team, Melissa can’t pass up such a great opportunity to talk to Penny and decides to talk to her. Your grave, sister.

Master of Casual Joe joins them at the bar and they ask her, once and for all, who told her to start the cheating rumors. She says, firmly, that it’s Teresa. Penny’s husband, it turns out, is a guy named Johnny who has been harassing Melissa on Twitter under the name “Johnny the Greek” (some version of that name, don’t go harassing him back).

Melissa and Joe are still skeptical, but it seems that the pieces are all falling into place; Teresa might have worked with Penny and Johnny for some reason to start these rumors, and then panicked when it got out of control. Now the question is what to do with this information.

Grade: B

Stray Observations:

When Teresa was at Jac’s house playing with Nicholas, she loudly commented that she wished (her husband) Joe could be there too, since he loved Nick so much. It was sweet, but was it also to save face for his comments in Lake George when he kind of insensitively said that autism was no biggie?

Teresa: “Just a few months ago, Kathy was a housewife. And now she has a cannoli kit.”

Photo Credits: BravoTV.com

Sign up for our daily newsletter with great stories like this and more!